Slow logon for two profiles?

[TechSupp]

I know this has been discussed previously, but in general the network (roadming) profiles don't take that long to load at logon but we have two specific logon profiles that seem to take a lot longer than any other to load, so I don't think its any of the DNS settings etc as its limited to just a couple no matter where they are loaded. All of our profiles use redirected folders for thier My Documents and a global desktop (same for all users). Any suggestions what I could do to reduce their logon time, can I remove anything from the profile which is not needed (suggestions?) or is it that their My Documents redirected folder has quite alot of files in it? Open to any suggestions.

[FN-GM]

Maybe the profile size is big

[antoeknee]

The size of these profiles would seem to be the first thing to check.

 

To prevent long logon times we have taken the following actions:

 

all student accounts use a mandatory profile, all students get the same profile all the time (and they can't change anything).

 

when they log off the locally stored profile gets deleted, if there are a lot of locally stored profiles you may get long initial logon times

 

As you have we redirect every users folders to a network share, some of our students amass a lot of files though not data as we set disk quotas and we don't have any problems with slow logon (well no ones complained :? ).

 

Some times you get this type of issue and there doesn't seem to be any reason, recently we have a couple of staff where their laptops wouldn't synchronise correctly and apart from the amount of data they had there didn't appear to be any reason for this. We created a new account for each of them and copied all their data to the new account and sync worked fine!

[maniac]

Redirected folders should make no difference to the logon speeds, infact roaming profiles themselves don't take that long to load, but they do take a while to appy sometimes, and the same goes for group policy objects, the more there are to load, the slower the logon.

 

We use simelar to the above, all users have a mandatory profile, and all local profiles are deleted when the user logs off as this can cause slow downs, as the policies are merged at logon if there's already a local profile in existance.

 

We have the users desktop, start menu and my documents folders re-directed to various places, and to speed things up even more the application data folder is deleted from the mandatory profile, so the local version of this is used at logon and disgarded at logoff. We find this gives an average logon time of around 40seconds, maybe upto 60 seconds on some of our slower machines. This may not sound breathtakingly fast (we have the 'wait for network at logon' policy enabled) but it is very consistant, and doesn't change much even when the network is busy.

 

Mike.

[TechSupp]

We use simelar to the above, all users have a mandatory profile, and all local profiles are deleted when the user logs off as this can cause slow downs, as the policies are merged at logon if there's already a local profile in existance.

 

and to speed things up even more the application data folder is deleted from the mandatory profile, so the local version of this is used at logon and disgarded at logoff.

 

Many thansk for the replys, have started looking at using a common ntuser.man for all the class logons, loaded from a central location just to make things easier to manage.

 

How do you delete the local profiles? Do you do this via a script or via a GPO setting? If its a script, have you got an example?

The same with the application data folder, as that is one of the largest parts of the profiles is that deleted by script or GPO setting?

[FN-GM]

There is an option in GP to delete the local profiles

[FN-GM]

Sorry no i think the policy is only for when a user has just been using that profile not all the profiles.

[TechSupp]

Thanks, think I've found a script sent in by another user of EduGeek so I'll try that. Just need to know the best way to delete the Application Directory off the profile.

[FN-GM]

Please can you attach the script here so other members who may need it can get it as well. Thanks

[TechSupp]

Here it is, just did a search on the forums:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10194&highlight=delete+local+profile+script

 

This could be whats causing the problems as peolpe are starting to complain that logon is progressivly getting slower (although times are between 40 to 90 seconds). The original problem is I think the size of the profiles and I will sort that by making a small default profile mandatory for them. Just need to get the best way to delete the Application directory.

 

Thanks Guys, God am I glad of this forum for tech support.

[FN-GM]

Thanks

[TechSupp]

As a slight aside, if I manually delete the Application Data folder from the users profile and make sure the ntuser.man is set, when the user logs on then off will the directory be recreated, thus forcing me to delete the foleder again so it won't be copied again at the next logon or is it not created due to it being a mandatory profile?

 

Sorry for the inane questions be we have all got to learn somewhere and don't ever see me going on any courses that would enable me to answer my specific questions.

[FN-GM]

It won't be created because its a mandatory profile. Any mandatory profile doesn’t change the original file.

[TechSupp]

Whoopee! Sorts that little problem out, as if I swap them over to a central profile and I need to reset anything I'll only have to delete one folder :-)

[FN-GM]

when you say delete Application Data folder is that on the server or on the clients?

[TechSupp]

From Maniac's earlier reply I presumed it was the profiles on the server as the local ones are to be deleted so they don't interfere with the logon process.

[FN-GM]

sorry you have lost me now

[TechSupp]

and to speed things up even more the application data folder is deleted from the mandatory profile, so the local version of this is used at logon and disgarded at logoff.

Mike.

 

As 'maniac' says, they delete the Application Data folder from the server based mandatory profile (seems logical and Ok after your explanation to my question about it) so just asking is there a script that would do this task.

[FN-GM]

oh right i get you sorry.

 

Well i would still have an application data folder someplace but have it redirected to the location.

[TechSupp]

But surely if its not written to if mandatory profiles are used and any software that requires an entry in that folder will have its entry in the local copy (default user) for which ever PC it was installed on, then its only use is for roaming profiles which I am trying to get away from.

 

If you understand my logic, I'm doing well for a Sunday night!!!

 

If you didn't, don't worry, think I've enough amunition now to attack the slow logons.

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

well when you make the profile you will open up software such as Microsoft Office 2003 and the installer will come up. If you use the same application data folder you have there set to redirection when each user opens Microsoft Office 2003 they won't get the installer. But if you have profiles without the application data folder each and every time the user open Microsoft Office when they have just logged on the machine they will see the installer. Sorry I haven’t explained that well.

[maniac]

If you delete the 'application data' from the server copy of the mandatory profile, then the users application data folder will be created on the local machine at logon, based on the machines 'all users' application data folder.

 

The only file actually required in the mandatory profile is the user.man file itsself, everything else can be left out and it will run quite happily. Personally I leave the rest of the items in place, just the application data folder I remove because of its size.

 

If you re-direct it to a shared 'application data' area, then you run into all sorts of problems with multiple users all trying to read/write from the shared folder Never quite seen the point of this active directory setting as I've never got it to work!

 

As I say, my logon time isn't particulary fast, around 40 seconds, but it is reliable and consistant. We used to run roaming profiles here for the students about 2 years ago, one of the first changes I recommended when I started was moving to a mandatory policy, it halved the logon time overnight.

 

We still use roaming profiles for the staff as it allows them to customise their desktops, wallpaper etc, which we don't mind them doing.

 

Mike.

[maniac]

well when you make the profile you will open up software such as Microsoft Office 2003 and the installer will come up. If you use the same application data folder you have there set to redirection when each user opens Microsoft Office 2003 they won't get the installer. But if you have profiles without the application data folder each and every time the user open Microsoft Office when they have just logged on the machine they will see the installer. Sorry I haven’t explained that well.

 

These settings are stored in the user.dat (or .man) registry file and not the application data folder. Providing you have run through the initial setup wizard on the username you create the mandatory policy with, then the same settings will apply to all users using that policy. I register ours to 'Authorised User' with our school name as the company.

 

The same applies to windows media player, and software like Macromedia suite, paint shop pro, etc. However, if you run Cubase you will need a small section of the application data folder to stop the registration screen appearing, as this program does store these settings in this folder.

 

The brilliant thing I find about mandatory profiles is you can open up the user.man file as a hive in regedit, and if you know your way around the registry you can control virtually any aspect of the users environment including some settings you can't define through group policy.

 

Mike.

[TechSupp]

We still use roaming profiles for the staff as it allows them to customise their desktops, wallpaper etc, which we don't mind them doing.

 

Mike.

 

Thanks, thats what we are aiming towards, just that at some point they were roaming profiles and now I just need to back up a little and remove all the rubbish they created i.e. the local profiles etc. Thanks for the info (thats everyone) its cleared up quite a few questions I had of the dark arts of roaming and mandatory profiles.